Robots, cyborgs, and AI (but no mecha!) take the stage on this week's Fanart Friday!

Fanart Friday returns, not really feeling Angel Beats, but I'm on episode 10 so I might as well just wrap it up. Sorry folks--I'll go into more detail in the comments, where you can totally downvote me as hard as you want. Last week, it was all about the feels with a look at sad moments and stories, but this week we're enhancing humanity with MACHINES, CYBORGS, and ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCES!

Mass Effect's EDI starts off as an AI (with an unusually attractive voice, even Specialist Traynor agrees) powering the Normandy and handling its higher functions, until things get weird in Mass Effect 3 and EDI gets her own body. All the way, she's one of my favorite characters in the trilogy.

Ghost in the Shell asks a lot of the hard sci-fi questions (what really is humanity and its purpose? are machines capable of humanity and morality?) and mixes it with some truly insane action, showing just how dangerous augmented humans (or just straight-up machines) are compared to humans in combat.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, please--read up now. Time of Eve doesn't try to break these rules, but instead examines machines' place among humans in society and how they live life within the confines of the Three Laws.

by Bman2006 (if this looks familiar to some of you, it's because it made Daily Deviation!)

Much like Maes Hughes last week, Bender is another character who just happens to show up a lot on Fanart Friday. Don't like it? You can bite his shiny metal ass!

The Big O's Dorothy, on the other hand, is a much more pleasant robotic companion. Usually, I feel bad for "wards" or servant-type characters, but Roger Smith's a pretty chill dude, and Dorothy doesn't have to put up with that much outside of, y'know, bad guys and all.

And then, of course, there are the machines that spring out of people's bodies fully-formed, like FLCL's Canti. How many times did they show all six episodes on Toonami and/or Adult Swim? I remember at least six months' worth, but maybe I'm wrong...

Persona very quickly answers if a machine can have a soul (the answer is yes), and also grants this particular machine--Aigis--a very powerful Persona of her own in addition to a ridiculous arsenal built into her body!

More on One Piece's lovable Franky later on--right now, it's all about the Terminator-esque terror that is Bartholomew Kuma. We don't know what's happened to the actual (not entirely human) Bartholomew Kuma--all we know is that the World Government has an army of mechanical lookalikes called Pacifista that act as shock troops.

Not gonna lie--it's super annoying to have to constantly look up how to type GLaDOS' name. As the ruthless(ly hilarious) villainess of both Portal games (and a great Defense Grid DLC), this ice-cold bitch did something that few video game villains do: she made me genuinely hate her. Of course, all was forgiven on my end in Portal 2, more or less.

Dragonball Z's Androids presented a pretty cool--if simplified--threat to the Z Warriors: they couldn't get tired, meaning they could fight at full strength all day while Goku got sidetracked thinking about food and Vegeta got sidetracked by his gigantic ego. Also, I'm weird and kinda like the fact that #17 and #18 now have names (Lapis and Lazuli). So the real question: what's #16's name?

I'm sure some of you can forgive me for immediately thinking Miss Monochrome was somehow related to Vocaloids, but a quick bit of research reveals that I was close--she's a machine that wants to become an idol! The character was created by voice actress Yui Horie, and is (naturally) voiced by her!

I think because I'm playing Xenogears right now, that and a request for the Mechons of Xenoblade actually got me looking at KOS-MOS art. Strangely, I could never get into Xenosaga (I quit halfway through Episode I), but Xenoblade (and the upcoming X) kick all kinds of ass!

Why are people so afraid of DRAMAtical Murder? I'm doing assignments for Crunchyroll's Newsletter for the Summer 2014 season, and people are asking not to get this show in particular. Is it a Diabolik Lovers kinda thing where it's way more disturbing if you dig a little deeper? Anyways, this is Clear, and he's some kind of sex robot? I don't know, I'm just grasping at straws here.

Thinking clearly, if I could have any kind of mechanical companion, I'd probably go for a Servbot... or an army of them. Tron Bonne and her whackadoo family had the right idea: just make a million of these guys and let them handle all the day-to-day busywork.

I know, I know, there's arguments for whether these guys count as mecha or not (they don't, in my book). It's strange and oddly comforting to see the Autobots and Decepticons side-by-side, even if it's only for a single picture (or the ending arc of Transformers Prime).

Chobits is a show that I shotgunned over like two days years and years ago, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. So imagine that your computer--the thing you're currently viewing this on (unless you're on your phone or tablet) is actually a person that has different functions and can display different things. It's like those weird "that's not my computer, that's my wife" guys, but taken to a whole new terrifying level.

WHAT A SOOTHING VOICE. I like how we're starting to get more sub/dub combinations on Crunchyroll, and if we ever get Cromartie High School (and Mechazawa's soothing voice), I really hope that we get both the subtitled and dubbed versions.

Franky is a cyborg. A pirate cyborg whose "Franky Invincible" move involves him lying face-up on the ground, because he made all his cyborg augmentations himself so they're all on the front. While the usual reaction would be a hearty "wtf," most One Piece fans just kinda rolled with it, because One Piece has things to do and places to go.

This picture is appropriately titled "For Everlasting Peace," and gives me a real pang of disappointment and regret--so many Mega Man titles, so many memories. The super fighting robot (and his badass grimdark upgrade, and his alternate-universe future treasure hunter, and his digital versions) is still a beloved icon of video games, showing how solid gameplay is all that really matters! Just look at Mega Man 9!

Some folks asked for C3PO alongside R2D2, the greatest Star Wars character ever. Sorry, guys, but nobody actually likes Threepio, so Portal's Companion Cube makes for a much better partner.

All right, time to power down--that's everything for this week! I'm gonna be blunt here--with over 100 comments last week, I didn't include everybody's requests. But once again, we'll go with MOST UPVOTED and MOST UNIQUE requests for the coming week--in the meantime, who are your favorite mechanical characters?

Like I say every week, your art is always welcome on Fanart Friday, regardless of your skill level or experience. Want to have your work featured? Just PM me a link to your art, and I'll make sure to include it in a future installment! Here are the next three upcoming themes for Fanart Friday:

-Next week, on JULY 25th, we close out the month of July with voice actress MEGUMI HAYASHIBARA! Reading like a who's who of classic characters, who is your favorite character voiced by this legendary actress? THIS IS THE ONLY THEME I'M TAKING REQUESTS FOR THIS WEEK!

-Then, on AUGUST 1st, we start a month-long theme to create THE PERFECT TEAM, starting with STRENGTH-based characters! No matter how smart you are, sometimes brute force is still the best option!

-On AUGUST 8th, we continue putting together THE PERFECT TEAM, balancing out powerful-but-slow with fleet-footed SPEED freaks! You can't hurt what you can't even touch!

For those of you planning ahead, I'll be revealing all of August's themes next week. Thanks again for coming by to check out Fanart Friday--it's amazing how we hit over 1000 likes and over 100 comments last week! Have a great weekend, and I hope you come by again next week!